high times for patroclus

'come! my legs are anxious and my heart is bared.'

i much prefer the version in which
they did not sleep together, legs intertwined
mouths caressing. i am so much happier
with the version in which
they slept side by side, hearts touching

'i felt your mouth and i knew every pair of lips that it would kiss and i thought 'okay' but i also thought 'each and every lip is a gem and a blessing and i have nothing to be sad about' so i knew that anxious legs and naked hearts maybe didn't matter so much.'


'how did you know?'


'i loved, a lot.'

all of it

i suppose the destructive force
the one that really gets me, that comes back for more
is the idea:
you can't do something special and live a long, healthy life.
you can't be better; you'll never be better
because you're not willing to give certain things up, or away.

that blue tape we use to put everything on our walls; painters tape,
i don't see it until (well) until i do
poking out and under, up and behind and peeling and
suddenly it's kind of hard to live in a space
that grew without me
i carry last year's tension on my back and in my neck, too
the fear of losing things that aren't yet rightfully mine
taking things that don't want to be taken
waking up to find
if i never came a-knocking, neither would you.

spontaneous prose

the absolutely undeniably lurid fact is that

when james says, "hey go get me that, kid," i smile at

the moniker, the request, i go get him that (kid)

and he doesn't even have to ask sometimes sometimes i'll just

go get him that

because i want to get him things

because waterfalling and valentines day and red roses

because lips and hair and eyes

all of the things that make me romantic and self destructive

and i go get him that (kid) i'll never stop and question myself

because why would i when it feels good

none of us can decide i sure can't decide about

is it better with the trees and the clouds and the green things

or the hair and the eyes and the lips and the waterfalling and the

saint valentine stuff, they're not exclusive but they're not

inclusive either, rumbling rocks blown-out down and  far away

maybe it's all just a goddamn avalanche of stuff-stuff-stuffing myself

with words and feelings and--

oops.

of breaking and things

i.

"-are you?"
the violent wreath of smoke bears your voice off
we will not listen, even hear your name
the soft, swollen echoes of memory haunting your every action
we do not aim for satisfaction but if it happens
well, so be it. we will not change. we will
watch the cancer billow out of your mouth and
not change, we will answer your laughter
with polemics and not change, we will
validate your every insecurity
but we will never change.

we, the mind and body.
arguing into the chasms of arizona
ricocheting through the desert, freezing in the night
holding our morals up with every sinew, every flexion
sweating our charisma and our grace, watching it
drench the hungry and cracked earth
leaving us, the mind and the body.

the underwhelmed,
the mind and the body.

ii.

forgive our debts!
pay our rents!
let us through your ivy-covered gates,
arm us for the war, give us guns for our waists
extra! extra! extraneous but beautiful--
jumbled brambles, mirthful--
sorrowfully obsessing--
great billowing gulls--
deluded love--
liberators and libations--
wise, wisecracking, wrecking--
jetting truth overtly--

the soldiers are marching
the soldiers are marching
bombs! nuclear bombs!
bombs of all sizes, colors and shapes, and acid rain
to wash the sins away.

there are no fights
if there are no people.

iii.

we left ourselves in two shooting stars
you and i and the great weight of the generation
back on earth, we looked for constellations
failing those, approximations
apellations
names for all of the things we couldn't explain

iv.

"you're not listening to me-"
no, i'm not.
outside, the cicadas reduce my mind to fog
the crickets march
the sun fades into a peculiar orange yellow pink
i watch the mosquitos bounce against the screen
waiting for things to end
waiting for things to begin
waiting
waiting
waiting

the things we do with train tracks

the steam engine, skating
whistles past and through,
over and under on crisp autumn days
its own violin, the tracks are its strings
a cello, viola, its music remains

in sharp october air
for eons, the dry reminders
of futures we've never really had or lost
pasts that grow and squirm in its wake
nows that come, but always a cost

i remember pumpkins
small frogs and Constable's clouds
the endless, abandoned railways
broken down cars from Kerouac dreams
cul-de-sacs where i learned to scrape hands
the grating of metal, the popping of seams

the swelling of seasons, crescendos of sound
the trains are returning, boring me down.

life as a tree

to the ones i best adore:

each night, at nine, my eyes begin to quake
the light falls down, it waves, it blusters up my name
for only i can swim to Silent Sea.

the beaches there are peaceful, without ache
with azure tides that give and never take
fish that sidle up and look at me

corals, scallops, oysters sitting still
no people here to rouse our sleeping will
to Silent Sea I swim. To Silent Sea.

each night, at nine, my eyelids make to fall
to pull me under, memories and all
the sirens fair, calling out to me

their hardened bodies, jaws of silver-blue
their grasping fingers, breath of salty dew
they cloud the current out to Silent Sea

i then awake and brush my arms to seize
the pen and paper's stinging, empty pleas
my roots are long, my gills do not exist
my bark is growing, swallowing me in
i move to swim, and find i am a tree
and all that's left are dreams of Silent Sea.

viduatis, -a, -um

i am leaving, headed far south
west and outwards. mostly, away.
i am going and it is in your name
silent one
tonight i will read eulogies to your good moods
knead dreams into longings, pretend
just for a moment that when i achieve my deep sleep
you will materialize in my arms and smile with your
lips, not touching me or wanting to
not kissing me, but wanting to

let's dance, some time. you and i and nobody else.
i'll kiss you on the mouth and you won't be expecting it
and there will be no more words or wanting.